Still, for the Northland, there remained now little of the keener
suspense since those first fiery outbursts in the South; but all
through the winter the dull pain throbbed in silence as star after
star dropped from the old galaxy and fell flashing into the new.

And it was a time of apathy, acquiescence, stupefied incredulity; a
time of dull faith in destiny, duller resignation.

The printed news was read day after day by a people who understood
nothing, neither the cautious arming nor the bold disarming, nor
the silent fall of fortified places, nor the swift dismantling of
tall ships--nor did they comprehend the ceaseless tremors of a land
slowly crumbling under the subtle pressure--nor that at last the
vast disintegration of the matrix would disclose the forming
crystal of another nation cradled there, glittering, naming under
the splendour of the Southern skies.

A palsied Old Year had gone out. The mindless old man--he who had
been President--went with it. A New Year had come in, and on its
infant heels shambled a tall, gaunt shape that seated itself by the
White House windows and looked out into the murk of things with
eyes that no man understood.

And now the soft sun of April spun a spell upon the Northland folk;
for they had eyes but they saw not; ears had they, but they heard
not; neither spoke they through the mouth.

To them only one figure seemed real, looming above the vast and
motionless mirage where a continent stood watching the parapets of
a sea-girt fort off Charleston.